The Natural - Man-made Debate

On Organism & its Habitat

The concept of a 'body' is central to understanding of the 'habitat' it creates for itself. As we know, organisms in the process of creating their own living environment, are merely responding to their respective bodies. (a bird makes a nest to contain itself, a termite makes a hill to contain a colony of its members) The environment is thus a response generated to and through the physical attributes of their own body, as well as is a product of their own capabilities and limitations. The habitat they produce thus, is a map of their body, since it indexes these processes. The body of the organism is thus inseparable from the study of their habitat. In other words, both, the organism and the habitat form a system in  itself.

Can we understand the way organisms make their habitat as a cultural process? I use the term culture to hint at the 'practice' of building by animals. And it is in this spirit that we constantly contest the word 'natural' - that, if the spider (as a body) creates an appropriate response for itself as a web, or a termite as a hill using the materials that are available and amenable to them, why should the building of a house by a human being (as a body) be considered man-made? In other words, both are as natural, since both are created by living organisms. It is for this very reason that we have avoided the use of the term 'natural' in our brief, as well as discourse. 

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Discussions during first AD module, SEA.

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Poster image below, from the Bienecke Library Archives, Yale University.

Last month

I have not been able to record quite a lot of things that have been going on in the last two months. I was invited by my friend Nisha Nair to host/conduct the book opening of her very first curatorial project 'People Called Mumbai'. The event took place at the Hive in Bandra - a fascinating labrynthine building that creates cells for working and different cultural activities. I wasn't able to document the place extensively, but I will probably go there again to capture it.

Before all that, I was busy putting up an exhibition at SEA for the advisory meeting that happened on Jan 9th. I also intended to bring out our first newsletter then, however, it will only be released now after the student works have been put in - those that were displayed in the exhibition. The newsletter also underwent some revisions and scrutiny.

The next week after the exhibtion, we went for a study trip to Dahanu for a week. We spent considerable time with Design Jatra that includes Pratik Dhanmer, Shardul Patil, Mayukh Gosavi and Anuradha Wakade. We also met Rima, a third year intern from Academy of Architecture who is currently assisting the practice. I enjoyed all of their enthusiasm, passion and command over their subject of traditional building practices in Murbad and its engagement with natural landscape.

Right after my return from the study tour, I flew off to Delhi for putting up CAMP's exhibition; after which I have been in Bombay compiling the study tour work with students at school. At the same time, I have gotten busy with CAMP's next exhibition that will but put up at Bhau Daji Lad Museum in Byculla. The different geographies I have cut in this short span of time need detailed posts, those that get formulated in the head, but I have not been able to put things down on the blog only due to the lack of committed time.

For example, setting up the exhibition at Jorbagh in Delhi deserves some attention, for I got to experience a many eccentricities of art and artists. Covering up a whole building in a single mask, chopping off windows from walls, drilling into beams and columns, hanging objects from ceilings, removing windows - all was done to make the space suited for the planned exhibit. Further, installing the exhibits and the way they come together in the chaos of the space was even exciting. I want to recount these events in detail.

While at Delhi, I got the opportunity to meet people like Jeebesh Bagchi, Ashish Rajyadhyaksha, and some others of whom I have heard of being prominent in the contemporary cultural scene in India. At the same time, I got introduced to Amol Patil and Poonam Jain from the Clark House Initiative (artist group in Mumbai) with whom we did some parts of the CAMP installations in Jorbagh. Poonam and Amol were in Delhi for putting up their own art shows at the Japan Foundation. They happily came to help CAMP after finishing their work at the foundation. Both, Amol and Poonam studied at Rachana Sansad, and that immediately opened up a common circle of people we knew. Further, we found out that we live in the same neighbourhood in Mumbai! We connected quickly. After my return, I got to meet the entire team of Clark House for a collaborative project that will be executed at the Bhau Daji Lad museum.

I may not be able to write on all of these different engagements in detail - since it all depends on the moods of the author and the space I am in, and also because then the time for reading or thinking about it will be gone. But I must certainly record some instances that gave me satisfaction, pleasure and added to my knowledge of understanding the world. Details will come subsequently.

Watercolour

A4
watercolour
Anuj Daga.

Khoj, Delhi

I was in Delhi in the last week with CAMP for setting up our exhibition "As If - II: The flight of the Black Boxes" in Jorbagh. While there, I was put up at Khoj, an artist residency in Khrikee - a place that I have been to long ago as a part of the research 'Cultural spaces in India' initiated by the Goethe Institute in 2010. Then, Khoj was small bungalow with beautiful spaces and a central little courtyard. Now, it seems that Khoj has acquired some more adjoining property and enlarged its facility to include formal spaces for different activities. There are rooms for resident national or international artists, a library, cafe and other staff quarters - all organized around a courtyard. The space still is charming, although not as colourful as it was before...

CAMP began as an offshoot of Khoj when it wanted to extend its roots to Mumbai. However, CAMP went on to be an independent studio with Shaina Anand and Ashok Sukumaran ofcourse with its "background member" Sanjay Bhangar. Our brief stay in Delhi was thus hosted by Khoj in the background of this association. 

While Khoj was inactive when I went there this time - with its library closed, its director traveling, with no artists yet in, working on any project as well as the terrible weather due to which the place looked cold and grey; it certainly seemed quite appealing to me in its silence. The place has many different spaces that are funded by established artists in India, as well as some international grants. I wasn't able to interact with any one there so I am not sure about the presence of this place in Khirkee. However, of the little I know, Khoj anchors the neighbourhood in its place.

The building is visually boxed into an empty steel framework, parts of which are visible at its entrance. The little offset of the building within its plot passages into the main studios, but is converted into an information cubicle where events happenings and brochures of exhibitions are kept for pick up. Once inside, the building frames its surrounds through the metal frames and window cuts. Right opposite to Khoj is a dilapidated building - a ruin which has remained in the derelict state for about five years, Ashok mentioned. The five floor building is peeled off its walls, and has large holes on its floors. As an architect, it was fascinating to see the building in section, literally. Further, as an artist, it reminded me of Matta Clark's violent artistic acts of chopping full scale buildings. 

Inside, Khoj is hollowed into a staggering courtyard from where one gets the anatomy of the entire place. One can see the studio spaces, staircases and bridges as well as the staff quarters in the far upper corner of this box. This interior space is entirely white washed bricks. The tree within the courtyard is cute, romantic, but scales the space well. 

I am sure that each corner of Khoj creatively activates through the imagination of the artists it hosts. The culmination of the building into the terrace gives a breathtaking view of the ruin that faces it. The surprise of destruction, the forced voyeurism invited by the handicapped building, the poetic incompleteness, its political situatedness in its context and the dramatic way in which Khoj reveals the building in the end makes it truly an artistic discovery. The terrace, borrowing its partial background from the adjoining naked brick building facade is thus a viewing deck exposing to us the world it sits in.